Last weekend I saw Peter Jackson’s version of The Hobbit.  I was entertained but disappointed.  I am not a Tolkien purist; so I don’t object to changing the book in a movie.  Unfortunately, Jackson seems to have either ignored or misunderstood eucatastrophe, the heart of Tolkien’s epic vision and his greatest contribution to literature. 

           Jackson’s problem is that he can’t resist portraying Bilbo Baggins as a hero.  A hero is a person or a character who courageously exercises his skills in the cause of good. Jackson’s Bilbo is far more active than Tolkien’s.  Instead of suddenly rushing off to the join the dwarves’ adventure, Tolkien’s Bilbo has decided not to go until he is rushed out of his hobbit hole by Gandalf.  He doesn’t help the dwarves in a fight against the trolls, but rather manages to escape while the trolls fight among themselves and with the exception of Thorin is unable even to warn the dwarves, who are neatly bagged without much of a fight.  He most certainly does not rush to Thorin’s aid against the orcs and the wolves, but, like Gandalf and the rest of the dwarves, is helplessly and hopelessly up a tree—a tree that Tolkien’s Bilbo can not even get into without the help of the dwarf Dori. In Tolkien even Gandalf does not save himself and the rest of the party by sending a message to the eagles.  The eagles see the fires and hear the howling wolves and decide to steal the goblins’ prey from them.    

            Some of these errors can be attributed to Jackson’s mistaken attempts to make the story more exciting and giving into the irresistible urge to use special effects, but the problem is much deeper. Jackson has the concealed Bilbo see Gollum drop the ring and then take it.  In the novel Bilbo has been accidentally dropped by Dori as they are fleeing from the goblins, then is crawling in the dark when he just happens to touch a ring—the ring—and puts it in his pocket.  He does not guess the riddle concerning time because Gollum makes a mistake but rather unwittingly asks for time and serendipitously saves his life.

            What makes Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy more than a ripping good story is his fictional presentation of eucatastrophe in which heroes fail and evil defeats itself (See “Harry Potter Part II: The Good and the Not So Good” https://www.billisley.com/?p=323).  The happy accidents in The Hobbit prepare us for the epic vision of The Lord of the Rings. 

            Unlike his version of the Ring trilogy, Jackson’s film adaptation of The Hobbit has his heroes, like Bilbo, too active in bringing about victory.  Eucatastrophe is gone.  The movie is entertaining, but it will not make our hearts swell with an inexplicable joy as our imaginations soar to a hope that is real but beyond humanity’s reach.

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